Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen' (French: 'Cinq semaines en ballon') is an adventure novel by Jules Verne. It is the first Verne novel in which he perfected the 'ingredients' of his later work, skillfully mixing a plot full of adventure and twists that hold the reader's interest with passages of technical, geographic, and historic description. The book gives readers a glimpse of the exploration of Africa, which was still not completely known t